Gretchen Peters

Induction Year: 2014

Birth Name: Gretchen Peters

Birth Date: 11-14-1957

Place of Birth: Bronxville, New York

The youngest of four children, Gretchen Peters was raised in the New York City suburb of Pelham, NY in Westchester County. Her father was an author and a television documentary producer. The household was intellectual and creative, and the songwriter was writing poems while still in grade school. When she was seven, she asked for and got a guitar for Christmas.

Her parents divorced when she was eight. In 1970, she moved with her mother to Boulder, Colorado. Her mother took her to local clubs, and the teenaged Peters was soon performing in them.

When she was 18, records by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris led her to the music of Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard, who deeply influenced her as a songwriter. Peters made her first homemade recording at age 19, and it received local radio airplay. She then quit the University of Colorado to make music full time.

Inspired by the successful examples of K.T. Oslin, Steve Earle and Nanci Griffith, Gretchen Peters moved to Nashville in late 1987. Within two years, established artists were recording her songs.

Her first big success as a songwriter was “The Chill of an Early Fall,” recorded by George Strait in 1991. Peters’ domestic-violence saga “Independence Day” was a hit for Martina McBride in 1994 and was named the 1995 CMA Song of the Year. It was also nominated for a country-song Grammy Award, as was the 1995 Patty Loveless hit “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am.”

Gretchen Peters was named Songwriter of the Year at the 1996 Nashville Music Awards. In 2007, she was Folkwax magazine’s Artist of the Year.

Canadian rock star Bryan Adams has also been her collaborator on many songs. In addition to providing songs to him, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Randy Travis, Pam Tillis, Shania Twain and more, Peters has always pursued her own career as a performing and recording artist.